Weekender for sale

Talking of the holiday season, or maybe just the weekend, do you check out where to go on the recommendation of shows like this?

Mike Whitney: G'day, welcome to the show, believe it or not I've come to a place where I have never been before.

— Channel 7, Sydney Weekender

Channel 7's Sydney Weekender has been running for years, but there must still be some places Mike Whitney has never been. And now that the show has a magazine off-shoot, there are more destinations to feature. Like the McPhersons Plains Alpine Retreat, whose manager Emma Ernst, bought this ad in the Spring edition ...

Turn back a page and the magazine has this feature extolling the charms of Emma's retreat:

Nestled between State Forest and Kosciuszko National Park, McPhersons Plains Alpine Retreat is your "Man from Snowy River" escape where you'll get a good sized serving of hearty home cooked meals.

— Sydney Weekender, Spring 2005 edition, pg 72

Et cetera, et cetera.

Emma was pleased with the feature, which is no surprise. Essentially she wrote it herself. It looks no different from other articles in the Weekender, and that's what the magazine offers. It's all spelt out in this letter to potential advertisers:

Advertising Content

Choice of Advertisement or Advertorial/Infomercial.

Advertorial will not be tagged as an advertisement and will appear in editorial format if desired.

Michael Standen has also run ads for the Merimbula Divers Lodge. But he thinks The Weekender has gone too far:

This is my problem:

Either it's impartial editorial, written by magazine writers, or it's an ad ... and it is labelled as such.

— Email from Michael Standen to Media Watch

But Michael was even more taken aback when the magazine approached him recently with a new inducement:

Dear Mike,

...should you decide to book and pay for advertising to the value of $10,000 in our magazine over a period of up to twelve months, your Dive Centre will feature in a segment of the Sydney Weekender Television show.

We asked Alan Dungey from the Weekender show, if he thought it appropriate that advertisers can purchase editorial content on his show:

Although no stories have been broadcast under the arrangement to which you refer, any editorial content that appears in Seven's programming pursuant to a commercial arrangement is disclosed to viewers as required under the Code of practice.

So how will you know if the holiday destination has paid the ten grand for their spot or if Mike Whitney really did just love it? Well, you'll have to keep a hawk eye on the credit sequence they run at the end of the show:

Hope you've enjoyed the show, see you real soon, on another Sydney Weekender.

— Channel 7, Sydney Weekender

The logos show which companies have made "commercial arrangements" with the show.